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English
> Theory > Ecology
“The devil makes the
saucepans, but not the lids”: Defence of the climate and anti-capitalism
TANURO
Daniel
25 January
2007
The impact
of Al Gore’s film, interest in the Stern report, the echo of the reports from
the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the growing success of
the demonstrations organised by the Climate Action Campaign illustrate the
increasingly lively public concern on the question of climate change. Much too
inactive on this terrain, the left should get involved in the international
movement emerging around the idea that rescuing the climate - in a spirit of
social justice - takes precedence over profit and necessitates a significant
redistribution of wealth. Such a movement is indispensable. Involving the
workers’ movement is one of the strategic objectives to which the left should
pay particular attention.
Summary
·
Physical constraints
and (...)
·
Three interlinked difficulties
·
From Kyoto to
Nairobi and (...)
·
Global rationality
vs. (...)
The quantity of
carbon emitted annually by the world economy represents around double that
which the ecosystems (oceans, soils, vegetation) are capable of absorbing. The
natural cycle tends towards saturation. Accumulating in the atmosphere, the
surplus provokes an intensification of the natural greenhouse effect, and thus
a warming of the surface of the planet. The phenomenon began with the
Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism. Its two main causes are the
combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and changes in land use
(clearances, ploughing and so on). The first of these causes has become the
most important with the explosion of the car population in the 1950s. More than
75% of the historic responsibility for climate change lies with the developed
countries but emissions from the developing countries are rapidly increasing
(above all those of the bigger countries like India, China, Brazil) (fig. 1).
According to the specialists, we should aim at maintaining the increase in
average temperature of the surface of the globe below
To measure the
full extent of the challenge, we should be aware that currently the limitation
of the rise in temperature to
Physical constraints and social
laws
The warnings
issued for more than 20 years have not been heard, it is too late today to
avoid climate change: it is underway and will make its effects felt for several
centuries. The question posed is: how to limit the damage? The response is
framed by unavoidable physical constraints. According to climate models, the
atmospheric concentration in greenhouse gases corresponding to a maximum rise
of
The current concentration,
all gases together, already places us in the dangerous zone 465 ppmvCO2eq (of
which 370 ppmv of CO2 alone). Its increase seems
increasingly rapid. [4] To restabilise the
temperature of the globe implies stabilising as quickly as possible the atmospheric
concentrations of the gases concerned. Indeed, given the lifetime of these
latter and the thermic inertia of the oceans, [5]
notably, it would not suffice to stabilise the emissions: these latter should
be reduced in a very drastic and very rapid fashion.
(JPEG)
[Graphics are note reproduced here. See **] Fig. 1. Historic
responsibility of groups of countries in climate change. Changes in
volumes of carbon emitted from 1870 to 2000, by region of the world. The
current volume of emissions is near to 8 gigatonnes
of carbon per year (28.8 Gt of CO2). Source: Oakridge
National Laboratory.
The figures
below illustrate this link between temporal timescales, temperature,
concentration and emissions for a stabilisation at 550 ppmv
of CO2 alone (fig. 2). Because of the precautionary principle, and considering
all the greenhouse effect gases, the objective of a stabilisation at 450
ppmvCO2eq should be adopted, to take account of the unknowns of the climate
system. According to the Stern report, [6] this objective requires that
emissions (42 gigatonnes/year currently) reach a peak
in 10 years then fall by at least 5% per year, giving by
(JPEG) Fig. 2. Source: GIEC.
The most
significant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2). As this gas is an
inevitable product of any combustion, the reduction of its emissions is not as
easy as that of an atmospheric pollutant like sulphur, which can be eliminated
from smoke. [7] Is it possible, then, to respect such draconian physical
constraints without throwing humanity several centuries backwards? To avoid
panic reactions, ostrich reflexes, or other forms of irrational behaviour (that
reactionary forces could take advantage of), it is extremely important to
hammer home the fact that the response, on the technical-scientific level, is:
yes! Yes, the struggle against energy waste, increased energy efficiency, the
replacement of fossil sources by renewable sources, as well as the protection
of soils and forests allow the challenge to be met (read “Myths and
technological realities, social challenges”).
Given the
importance of the process of combustion, the energy question is at the centre
of the debate. Indeed, the flows of solar energy which reach the surface of the
Earth, and which will do so for at least 5 billion years, are equal to 7,000 to
8,000 times world energy consumption. A thousandth of this flow can be
converted into usable energy with the aid of current technologies. This
technical potential will increase with scientific progress (if it is given the
resources). That does not mean that there are no problems, that it is “enough”
to replace fossil fuels by renewable sources. In the short term, the transition
involves numerous difficulties. In the longer term, as solar flows constitute a
source of scattered energy, its use requires a high degree of decentralisation,
thus of social participation and collective responsibility.
Changes should
notably take place in the individualist lifestyles of the wealthier fractions
of society, in particular in the developed countries, which make a great use of
ecologically unsustainable technologies which cannot be generalised to humanity
as a whole. But these changes are not fatally synonyms of “regression”. If the
climate to be saved in social justice, this can involve a better quality of
life for the immense majority of the population, even in the “rich countries”.
The painful
character of climate change stems from the fact that solutions are being
implemented much too meagrely. Why? Because they reduce the profitability of
capital, imply the suppression of profitable activities, challenge economic
rents and the situations of power linked to energy centralisation, necessitate
planning and public initiative, imply a relocation of
activity, overturning the infernal overproduction/overconsumption
spiral of some/under-consumption of others... and so on. These reasons
are economic, and thus social. They do not flow from unavoidable natural laws
but from social laws, that humanity can change.
The specialised
literature characterises climate change as a phenomenon of “anthropic”
origin. This expression is in fact erroneous. Warming is not the poisoned fruit
of “human activity” in general, or of “technology” in general, but of
capitalist activity and of capitalist technology (that the bureaucratic regimes
of the former Soviet bloc essentially only mimicked). It is the product of a
system which “increasingly resembles its concept”, according to Michel Husson’s fine expression. [8]
The philosopher
Hans Jonas, in his famous “Responsibility principle” was one of the
first to grasp the major importance of climatic limits to the development of
human societies. Written in 1979, his warning on this precise point went too
much unheard, although his theses in general had a great influence. [9] But
Jonas’s ideology led him to stand the problem on its head. Instead of seeing
the rise of the greenhouse effect as a consequence of the frenzy of capitalist
growth, he attempted a supreme and unanswerable scientific argument against the
“Marxist utopia”. The “Responsibility principle” charges “utopia” with
wishing to completely suppress the fetters on “technology” whereas this would
be intrinsically destructive of the environment. [10]
Contrary to this
thesis, Marxist analysis views climate change as the result of a mode of
production which is unsustainable because its goal is purely quantitative: the
accumulation of value. Marx notes it from the first pages of Capital: these are
the characteristics of value as the specific historic form of wealth which
raises the illusion that a movement of unlimited material accumulation would be
possible. Consequently, in this generalised mode of production of commodities, “production
for production’s sake” inevitably leads to “consumption for consumption’s
sake”. [11]
The energy
bulimia is one specific manifestation of this dynamic, and the technologies that
it implements, contrary to what Hans Jonas and many others have said, are not neutral: they are made to measure to satisfy
the thirst of surplus-value. Recourse to fossil fuels and nuclear energy is
completely exemplary in this respect. This recourse is not the result of some
technological automatism but of a choice in favour of energy sources which can
be appropriated, because they generate economic rent, that is superprofits.
If the
photovoltaic effect (the generation of electric current in certain semi-conductor
materials when light is run through them) discovered by Edmond Becquerel in
1839 has never been the subject of a will for systematic development, it is
notably because solar energy is not appropriable as easily as reserves of hard
coal or oilfields. Today, after two and a half centuries of capitalism based on
fossil fuels, the use of these latter has proved to be fundamentally
antagonistic to the rational regulation of the exchanges of materials between
humanity and nature (which Marx described as the “the only possible freedom”).
Through climate
change, nature itself seems to wish to make us understand that the imperious
necessity of this rational regulation has become a major reason to abolish this
mode of production. Let us stipulate that relative diminutions of intensity in
energy and in carbon of the economy (that is to say the quantities of energy
and carbon necessary to produce a unit of GDP), observed for two centuries,
change nothing in this necessity: they have been more than made up for by the
absolute enlargement of production. Indeed, the underlying law here is well
known: to compensate for the tendential fall in the
rate of profit, capitalism must conquer constantly new regions, create new
needs, new markets.
This frenzy of
growth, if allowed, will burn the last barrel of oil, the last tonne of coal.
To count on the eventual “depletion” of these resources so that environmental
damage ceases would be an error: if obliged to abandon fossil fuels, [12] the
capitalist dynamic of accumulation would transform entire regions into
ecological deserts by the plantation of enormous monocultures producing biofuel, or would erect nuclear power stations everywhere
it could. The ITER [13] project constitutes the last avatar of madness, well
described by Jean-Paul DELEAGE et al., [14] of a system fundamentally
incompatible with the rhythms of functioning of the biosphere.
Three interlinked difficulties
In spite of its
logic of accumulation, can capitalism respect in time the physical constraints
conditioning a stabilisation of the climate to a point which allows human and
ecological catastrophe to be avoided? Given the level already reached by
greenhouse gases and the inertia of the climatic system, that seems unhappily
highly improbable, indeed ruled out. Catastrophe, in reality, is already on the
march and can be seen through a series of events whose interconnected nature is
obvious (read “a major political and social stake”). Faced with the apparent
acceleration of reheating, the question today is rather whether the system is
capable of limiting the damage and stabilising the situation, and under what
social conditions. To give a concrete response to that, we need to take the
measure of three interlinked difficulties: the breadth of the changes to be
realised within a very short timescale, the rigidity of the energy system, as
well as the competition expressed in the relations between states (in
particular North-South relations).
First
difficulty:
the combination between very strong imperatives and very short timescales. The
breadth of the changes to be carried out in barely a few decades is dizzying:
it amounts to “decarbonising” the economy almost completely. That involves
moving away from fossil fuels in general as sources of energy, but also oil in
particular as raw material of the petrochemical industry (see box:
“decarbonisation and energy decrement”). Renewable sources can fill the gap,
but not under any conditions whatever. Not in the framework of a pursuit of
energy bulimia in the area of transport, or of a plethoric production of
plastics, for example.
In any case,
given their higher cost and that of fossil fuels, and given the briefness of
the timescales, the passage to renewables should
absolutely go hand in hand with a significant fall in the primary demand of the
developed countries (of the order of 50%, indeed more in the more
energy-consuming countries). Thus with a war on waste and a raising
of energy efficiency. Indeed, a war on waste and raising
of efficiency concerns not only installations, individual equipment and the behaviour
of individuals, but also and above all the global energy system, which
determines the whole. From a rational viewpoint, entire sectors of the economy
would be purely and simply suppressed because they are useless, indeed damaging
(production of weapons, advertising and so on), whereas others would be
rationalised to suppress the duplication of competition. That, capitalism
cannot even envisage, inasmuch as this would be contrary to its logic... But it
will not escape the fact that considerable changes will be necessary in areas
as diverse as land development, transport, agriculture, housing, leisure,
tourism and so on. Indeed, to realise them in the time period needed would
necessitate a strong centralisation and democratic elaboration of a well thought
through plan. All these elements are hardly compatible with neoliberal
management of a febrile mode of production, having competition as it motor and
the political exclusion of the masses as its corollary.
Second
difficulty:
the capitalist energy system is characterised by a great rigidity and a strong
centralisation. These do not flow only form the lifetime of investments (30-40
years for an electric power station) but also and above all from the fact that
powerful lobbies are attached to the goose that lays the golden eggs... and
permanently create new needs which “justify” the fact that the goose is put in
battery to lay more. The annual turnover for the sale of refined products in
the oil industry is estimated at 2,000 billion euros per year at the world level, including all products together, total costs, from
prospecting to refining via extraction, represent barely 500 billion. The
difference between the two (1,500 billion euros per year!) constitutes the mass
of profits, and above all superprofits n the form of
economic rent [15] accumulated thanks to the private appropriation of the
resource.
To this colossal
power should be added that of the sectors linked to oil. Cars,
chemicals, petrochemicals, aeronautics, naval construction and so on. : all these branches rely on a continued expansion of the
world market, and thus of material consumption and exchanges. In such a
configuration, although it is rapid, the development of investment in wind and
sun technologies (where situations of sale do not seem envisageable)
can only delay bringing a solution. Largely controlled by big groups like
Shell, BP, and so on, the renewables sector currently
serves mainly to supply a complement to fossil fuels, instead of replacing
them. With that of the individual car, the explosion of air transport and the
consumption habits which flow from it illustrate wonderfully the manner in
which this logic of the sorcerer’s apprentice is legitimised through the needs
that it creates and leads us still more quickly into the wall, while obscuring
our vision of reality.
Third
difficulty:
competition as it expresses itself in relations between states. CO2 produced at
any point of the globe contributes to planetary reheating. Given this global
character of the menace, the riposte should be thought through, planned and
articulated at the world level, privileging collaboration in the interests of
all, in a long term perspective. This work should aim centrally at bringing a
united response to the key question: how to share resources to combine the
drastic and rapid reduction of emissions at the world level with the right to
development of the countries of the South, where the vast majority of the human
race lives? Indeed, in spite of the efforts deployed by numerous scientists,
domination and competition systematically prevail over collaboration, and the
scooping up of resources (including by means of war) over the sharing of the
latter.
The attitude of
the main imperialist protagonists (
From Kyoto
to Nairobi
From all this,
it should not be deduced that the capitalist Moloch
will remain with arms folded faced with a phenomenon which, if it primarily
affects the exploited, also presents the threat of a massive devalorisation of capital and rising instability. But its
struggle, against climate change, for fourteen years, [16] is carried out
according to the rhythms dictated by capital - too slowly - and according to
neoliberal modalities - which increase social inequalities, North-South
tensions, as well as the appropriation and the pillage of natural resources.
Slowness and perverse effects: despite some positive traits,
This tendency is
clearly apparent in the intense diplomatic activity of Tony Blair and his
designated successor, Gordon Brown. At the G8 summit which he chaired, the
denizen of 10, Downing Street revealed his ambition : to make Great Britain the
pivot of a new climatic agreement that would strengthen the position of his
country as candidate to the leadership of the enlarged European Union. [17]
Published on
October 31, 2006, just before the UN climate conference in
The North/South
question is decisive, as we have seen. In freeing itself from the constricting
schedule of Kyoto, the Stern report emerges from the trench warfare between big
developing countries and imperialist metropolises, where the first say to the
second: “You are responsible, you act” and the second retort : “You will emit
soon more greenhouse gases than us, act also”. But the relationship for forces
for the dominated countries is not obviously better outside of the trenches
than within... At least for the next decades, the plan proposed by the former
chief economist of the World Bank involves the essential part of the effort of
reduction, imposed through a world price for carbon, being realised in the
South thanks to investment from the North, generators of emission rights for
the North. [19] Thus, whereas it was until now “complementary” to the so-called
“domestic” measures, the “flexibility” envisaged by
A market
governed by unequal exchange, in which the developing countries would be srongly encouraged to commit
themselves either by a tax on carbon, or by quotas, and which would increase
the imperialist domination of their economies. Certain
decisions taken at the recent UN Climate Conference (
Can a policy of
the kind proposed by Stern save the climate? It would first be necessary to
adopt an objective of reduction of emissions compatible with the physical
constraints. It is not the case in the report presented to the British
government and it is increasingly doubtful that such an objective will be
adopted in time. It would also be necessary that a strong
world “governance” is capable of imposing a world price for carbon determined
by the evaluation of the damage from long term warming, and not by the
short-term law of the market. This is not obvious either...Whatever the precise
contours of the post-Kyoto, it is then probable that neoliberal climate policy,
from here to 20-30 years time, will end in defeat. What could happen then? The
response smacks of political fiction.
Faced with
timescales which have become terribly pressing, it is not ruled out, for
example, that the dominant powers change course suddenly and use their state
apparatuses to mobilise and centralise all resources, indeed impose rationing,
as in a period of war. The comparison is not fortuitous: this turning point
could effectively accompany imperialist military adventures, indeed
inter-imperialist confrontations, or other types of murderous conflict. But
this is speculative: if wars for energy resources are already part of reality,
nothing indicates any abandonment of neoliberalism for a more state-centred
policy. In any case, such a mobilisation would obviously not have the goal of
saving the climate for all, but saving it to the extent of the possible in
protecting the social privileges of the exploiters. That would lead to
inestimable human suffering, an increase in exploitation, an aggravation of the
pillage of the dominated countries and a challenge to democratic rights.
Global rationality vs. rationality
of capital
In the absence
of a credible alternative to neoliberal policies, urgency pushes certain
milieus and personalities to elaborate proposals to accelerate the defence of
the climate in equity, but without breaking with market mechanisms when these
latter seem to rest on an undoubted consensus. Whatever their desire to be
realistic, these proposals postulate the realisation of a series of conditions
which, when one looks at them, seem highly utopian. In the eyes of the system,
they have the fault of resting on the force of conviction of an overall
rationality. Indeed, capital, as “many capitals” in competition with each
other, is characterised by the contradiction between its innumerable partial
rationalities and its growing irrationality as a system. Global rationality can
only convince it temporarily and in the very last extremity, when its survival
is threatened (but at that moment, in general, it is already too late for the
survival of numerous members of the less favoured classes and layers).
This quid pro
quo between global reason and the reason of capital characterises notably the
mechanism suggested to bring to an end the proposal known as “Contraction and
Convergence” (C&C). Formulated by the Indian ecologist Anil Agarwal, [22] taken up by the Global Commons Institute of
Aubrey Meyer [23] and popularised by eminent scientists like Sir John Houghton
[24] or Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, [25] this proposal
has the merit of settling the dilemma of the developing countries to the
advantage of the latter. Let’s take up the terms of the problem: if growth
based on fossil fuels is pursued, even admitting that the combined character of
development would mean they would not follow exactly the road followed by the
imperialist countries since 1780, these countries will accentuate the climate
change of which their peoples will be (are already!) the main victims. The poor
are right to not wish to remain poor in order to save the climate which has
been wrecked by the rich, C&C advocates a radical reduction of global
emissions (“contraction”) combined with an equalisation of emissions per
inhabitant (“convergence”) and a catching up of the development of the North by
the South thanks to clean technologies (fig. 3). We subscribe to this
egalitarian perspective, but how could it be put into practice?
(JPEG) Fig. 3. . Source : Global Commons
Institute and J. Houghton.
By way of a
response, it is suggested that exchangeable emission rights are distributed to
the developing countries inasmuch as they are below their quota per inhabitant.
The countries of the North who do not reduce their emissions enough should buy
these rights. The corresponding income would allow the countries of the South
to procure the technologies necessary to a development without carbon. This
scenario raises many practical questions. To whom would the rights be distributed?
Who would guarantee that their liquidation would effectively benefit the
peoples (and not pay the servicing of the debt, or to fatten the “local
elites”)? These are significant questions. But the mechanism also has a
fundamental weak point.
In his
presentation of the C&C scenario, the climatologist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, whose commitment to a solidarity-based rescue of
the climate is indisputable (see interview), writes this : “If the initial
sharing of the rights was based on equity, permits could constitute, in certain
conditions, a formidable vector of aid to developing countries. And on
condition that the total quantity of permits is determined by a concern to
protect the climate for the centuries to come, such a system would allow the
carrying out of the necessary reductions in emissions at least cost”. [26]
The problem resides obviously in the little word “if” and in the expression “on
condition that”.
Capitalism built
itself historically by appropriating natural resources. To distribute freely
equal rights to dispose of resources is completely opposed to its nature (that
is why, in practice, the distribution of emission rights is neither equitable
nor ethical, as shown by the experience of the European Exchange System of
rights - see article on sequel to Kyoto). In itself, it is obviously not a
reason to cast aside the demand (on the contrary). But the question to pose is:
who would impose respect of the prior conditions in the area of equity and
quantity of permits? The political representatives of the big
developing countries? Would they worry about ethics and the climate more
than the imperialist masters? Supposing that they had the will to impose such a
solution, it would be necessary that they rest on a very broad popular
mobilisation.
Is it realistic
to think that the poor masses of the South would mobilise on a demand as
ethereal as the distribution of exchangeable rights to emit carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere? If they adopted it, in any case, that would be in the framework
of overall demands which would be much more simple and direct: abolition of the
debt, agrarian reform, nationalisation of energy resources (as in
What this
discussion reveals is that the objective and subjective difficulties in the
rescue of the climate are indissolubly linked : we
cannot resolve one without resolving the other. To save the climate in social
justice, with a world population of 6 billion human beings, implies bringing
the average emissions down to around 0.4-0.5 tonnes of carbon per person and
per year. An American or an Australian emit nearly six tonnes, a Belgian or a
Dane three tonnes, a Mexican one tonne, a Chinese a little less, and an
Indian... 0.4 tonnes (Fig. 4). The only “durable” logic worthy of the name
consists in making the demi-tonne of carbon per person
and per year the quota of annual emission to be reached in each country at a
certain date. A rational world strategy must then have four combined aspects:
1°) to reduce radically the primary demand for energy of the developed
countries (divide it by four, six or eight - according to the country); 2°)
replace systematically fossil sources by renewable sources, beginning with
these countries; 3°) constitute a world fund for adaptation financed uniquely
according to the needs of the most threatened countries (see “A major social
and political challenge”); 4°) transfer massively clean technologies towards
the countries of the South, so that their development does not bring about a
new destabilisation of the climate. If we want these four aspects to have the
necessary breadth, be realised in the time limits necessary and be applied in
social justice and equality, then the solution cannot simply flow from market
mechanisms like the distribution of exchangeable rights, or the progressive and
spontaneous lowering of the cost of renewables in a
context of competition. [27]
(JPEG) Fig. 4. Emissions of CO2 due to the combustion of fossil
fuels (in tonnes of carbon) by person and by country (the other greenhouse
gases are not taken into account) and level of stabilisation for a population
of six billion human beings (0.5 tonnes of carbon/person and per year). Source : A. Berger, 2005.
It is necessary
that the four aspects above are missions of public service, confided to public
enterprises, realised independently of cost. According to
specifications drawn up on the basis of real needs, and considering natural
resources as the collective property of humanity. A radical
redistribution of wealth (abolition of the debt of the countries of the South,
an exceptional tax on wealth on a world scale, a tax bite on the profits of the
oil companies, suppression of arms expenditure) and a radical deepening of
democratic rights are then indispensable. Global rationality needs an
anti-capitalist perspective. For a world movement to rescue the climate
It will be
objected that this perspective is not realistic either in the current
conjuncture. That’s right : the development of an
anti-capitalist strategy for the climate is handicapped by the historic crisis
of legitimacy of the socialist project. Whereas they appear indispensable to
avoid climatic catastrophes, proposals like planning for the satisfaction of
needs, public industrial initiative and the nationalisation of the energy
sector (or any other form of adoption of public status to be elaborated at an
international scale) are discredited. These responses are largely amalgamated
with the waste of the ineffective command economy, wasteful, productivist and ultra-centralised, [28] as well as the
material privileges of the bureaucracy and the monopoly of the latter over
political decisions. Revolutionary Marxists can certainly explain that this
amalgam is abusive but their explanations will be convincing only whey they
show their rupture with productivism, by raising the
flag of an “ecosocialism” where resources - notably energy resources - are
self-managed by a supple linking of local communities, coupled with “planning
at the local, national, regional, and world level”. [29] However, even under
this flag, it is obvious that these explanations can win support from a limited
number of people only.
Fraudulent
market solutions on the one hand, discredited anti-capitalist solutions on the
other... What is the way out? Social mobilisation.
Instead of privileging lobbying (as do so many environmental associations
trapped in the apparatus of governance), this means building a relationship of
forces. Instead of wasting efforts attempting to convince employers and
governments, it means putting our energies into a work of rank and file consciousness
raising. Instead of vainly seeking the chimerical
recipe of salvaging the climate by exchanges of rights and other complicated
market mechanisms it means propagating the simple idea that the climate should
be saved in justice and equality, independently of cost, by taking the money
from where it is. Instead of bringing everything down to sole individual
responsibility, it means creating in action the social emancipator link which
alone can generate a new individual and collective responsibility of humanity
in its metabolism with nature.
As major global
challenge (similar to the threat of destruction by nuclear war), the question
of the climate can bring millions of people onto the streets. As we can see in
these pages, the list of social problematics raised
is long: access to resources, rights to employment, women’s rights, rejection
of racism, the fight against deregulation of public services, defence of
refugees, support to peasant agriculture, promotion of public transport, the
rights of indigenous communities, urban development, rejection of GMOs, the struggle against flexibility and just in time,
defence of biodiversity, maintenance of social security, without forgetting war
against war and the abolition of the third world debt... This diversity is a strength. The path to follow involves federating all these
movements of résistance in an overall action, concretised by world days of
action and demonstration. The specific mobilisation of youth so that this
planet is habitable and beautiful for all can catalyse
a world articulation of social movements. The initiatives of the Climate
Action Network can be a point of departure. The demonstration organised in
This strategy
has its demands. In a system based on the individual struggle of all against
all, the legitimate will of the exploited to improve their immediate conditions
of existence and their children will be more important than the dangers which
threaten tomorrow or the day after tomorrow - including if the ineluctability
of these dangers is scientifically demonstrated. That is why the mobilisation
for the climate should be linked to the satisfaction of the immediate needs of
the social majority: employment, land, housing, a decent income, heating,
potable water, employment status, working conditions, security of existence...
The very breadth of the climate threat creates multiple possibilities for
establishing this link in an organic manner, starting from the struggles on the
ground. On one condition : it is necessary to cease to
place action in a strategy of accompaniment of capitalist growth, as do the
traditional political and trade union leaderships of the workers’ movement. We
should on the contrary open our eyes to the fact that this growth - which no
longer creates jobs and engenders exclusion - takes us straight towards
ecological catastrophes of which the workers and the poor will be the main
victims. It is starting from this note that the left in general, and
revolutionary Marxists in particular, should try to commit the workers’
movement in convergence for the climate. It is not easy but it is possible, as
shown notably by the campaign of Quebecois trades unionists for the
nationalisation of wind energy (see box). Other paths can be evoked: workers’
control as means of contesting capitalist underhand dealing, on the one hand,
and the demand that public enterprises create jobs in the area of energy
efficiency and the implementation of renewables, on
the other. [30] Faced with the gigantic coalition of interests that lead
humanity to catastrophe and corrupt some layers of the population in the
illusory delights of a phoney petit-bourgeois
happiness, mobilisation for the climate can contribute to reconstructing a
bridge towards anti-capitalism. It means reanimating the desire for a concrete
utopia in showing how a collective well-being can appear very rapidly once one
accepts the idea of emerging from capitalist cul-de-sac on energy.
Climate or development ? Climate or well-being?
It is not the first time that capitalism has confronted humanity with a choice
between plague and cholera. But the frenzy of accumulation carries the infernal
dilemma to a global level, without precedent. This situation threatens barbaric
solutions of a terrible breadth, affecting tens of millions, indeed hundreds of
millions of people. “Il diavolo
fa le pentole ma no i coperchi” (“The devil makes the
saucepans, but not the lids”), says an Italian proverb. It is time to
extinguish the diabolical fire of accumulation : the
capitalist has no lid, and humanity risks being burnt.
I thank Marijke Colle, Jane Kelly, Manolo Gari, Michel Husson and Michaël Löwy who have commented on an initial version of
this text. The final version is my responsibility alone.
NOTES
[1] Several
recent studies state that the maximum increase should even be lower than
[2] The IPCC
will bring out its fourth evaluation report in early 2007. Its documents are
available online at the following address :
http://www.ipcc.ch/.
[3] In addition
to steam, whose quantities in the atmosphere are little influenced by human
activity, the main greenhouse effect gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane
(CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and the three fluorine furnace gases. Parts per
million, in volume (ppmv),
are a measure of concentration: 450 ppmv of CO2 means
that, out of a million atmospheric molecules, 450 will be molecules of CO2. For
reasons of convenience, greenhouse gas emissions are expressed in CO2
equivalent (ppmvCO2eq), which means that the quantity of each gas is converted
into the quantity of CO2 which would have the same effect of trapping infrared
rays (“ radiation power”).
[4] 2000-2001:
+1,5 ppmvCO2; 2001-2002: +2 ppmvCO2; 2002-2003: + 2,5
ppmvCO2; 2003-2004 : + 3 ppmvCO2.
[5] As the
warming of the mass of oceanic water is very slow, the current warming will in
any case have an impact for around a millennium.
[6] Stern Review
on The Economics of Climate Change.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm.
[7]
[8] “Comprendre le capitalisme actuel”. Text for the “Séminaire Marx au XXIème siècle -
http://hussonet.free.fr/mhsorbon.pdf.
[9] Hans JONAS, “
[10] It is not
without importance to note that this approach leads to deeply reactionary
conclusions: eulogies to the “mystification of the masses” as means of avoiding
“imposing politically” and with “a maximum of discipline” the “unpopular
measures” necessary to save the climate. And Jonas stipulates that these
measures will flow from “laws of ecology that Malthus was the first to
recognise”...
[11] MARX, “Théories sur la plus-value”,
Tome I, Ed. Sociales,
[12] The thesis
of the imminence of a peak of production before the depletion of oil and gas is
defended notably by the ASPO (http://www.peakoil.net/). In reality, it is wrong
to introduce this question into the debate on climate. Indeed: 1) the peak is
an economic, not a physical concept; 2) oil which is still exploitable is amply
sufficient to deregulate the climate; 3) known reserves of coal allow at least
300 years of exploitation; 4) significant oil resources exist in the oil shales, notably, whose exploitation is very ecologically
damaging.
[13] ITER is the
acronym of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Based in Cadarache (France) this project of common research should
lead to a prototype of a controlled fusion power station “Like the sun” it was
said in the media. This comparison, in reality, is inexact, solar fusion works
very slowly and recycles its waste. Read in particular Sylvie Vauclair, “La naissance des éléments.
Du big bang à la terre”, Odile Jacob 2006.
[14] Jean-Claude
DEBEIR, Jean-Paul DELEAGE and Daniel HEMERY, “Les servitudes de la
puissance. Une histoire de l’énergie”. Flammarion, Paris, 1986.
[15] Jean-Marie
Chevalier, “Les grandes batailles
de l’énergie”, Gallimard
2004.
[16] The UN
framework agreement on climate change was adopted at the Earth Summit in
[17] The G8
motion “Climate Clean Energy and Sustainable Development “
can be read on line at
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/PostG8_Gleneagles_CCChapeau.pdf.
[18] “Stern
Review”, op. cit.
[19] The phasing
would be determined by cost: the market will orient itself first to measures
demanding the least investment, like improved energy efficiency in the
developing countries, an end to deforestation, the development of biofuels, then wind and solar energy;
[20] The world
eco-industry market is estimated at 550 billion euros. The experts predict its
enlargement in the next five years, above all in the emergent countries, with
growth rates of 5 to 8%. Source: Analysis of the EU ecoindustries,
their employment and export potential.
http//www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enveco/industry_employment/
ecotec_exec_sum.pdf.
[21] The
flexible mechanisms of
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article648.
[22] Anil Agarwal & Sunita Nairin, “The Atmospheric Rights of All People on Earth”,
www.cseindia.org.
[23]
Seehttp://www.gci.org.uk/.
[24]
John Houghton, “Overview of the Climate Change Issue”,
http://www.jri.org.uk/resource/climatechangeoverview.htm#carbon.
[25] Jean-Pascal
van Ypersele, “L’injustice fondamentale des changements climatiques”, in Alternatives Sud,
Vol 13-2006
[26] JP van Ypersele, op. cit.
[27] The Stern
report squashes the idea that renewables impose themselves
spontaneously when their cost is equivalent to that of oil. According to the
report, at that time, the prices of oil products could fall to remain
competitive. The existence of a huge economic rent, in addition to profits,
effectively renders this scenario possible.
[28] A
particularly striking mess in the area of climate change, to the extent that
these economies had a very high intensity in energy and in carbon.
[29]
Michaël Löwy, “Qu’est-ce que ‘l’écosocialisme?”
http://www.iire.org/lowyeco.html.
[30] A demand of
this kind was put forward in the early 1980s by the surplus workers of the
multinational Glaverbel in the region of
* Published by
International Viewpoint Online magazine : IV n° 387 -
March 2007.
** The graphics
have not been reproduced here. To get them, look at IVP website:
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1233
* Daniel Tanuro
is an environmentalist and the ecological correspondent of the newspaper of the
Socialist Workers Party (POS/SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International),
“La Gauche”.